Body Games (A Games Novel) (6 page)

He looked shocked. “Why the hell are you so against me?”

“Are you freaking kidding me, Kip?” I stared at him, amazed that he was that dense. “Remember last time?”

“I thought we had a good time last time.”

I rolled my eyes. He would think that, wouldn’t he? “You played me like I was an idiot.”

He shrugged. “It was all part of the game. I thought you knew that.”

“And afterwards? When you had the gall to sleep with me after mocking me for the entire game behind my back?”

The look in his eyes grew defensive. “You seemed like you had a good time.”

“That’s because I didn’t know how much of a dick you were,” I hissed. “And now that I do, you’re the last man here I’d want to fuck.”

His expression grew sulky again, and I watched his boner visibly deflate. “You’d be lucky to get me. You’re no prize.”

I knew I wasn’t. I had nice eyes in an average face, a flat butt, and thighs that probably would look best after day thirty on the island. Really, the only thing I had going for me was my boobs, which I was rather proud of. But for him to point out that I wasn’t the hottest girl on the island? “That is not the attitude that is going to get you laid, Kip.”

“Doesn’t sound like I’m getting laid anyhow,” he said in a snide voice. “You were a shitty fuck anyway.”

“So shitty you clearly wanted to hit it again?” I asked sarcastically. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you. Also, grow up.”

“Fuck you,” he said, waving me away. “I’m going to go swim for a bit and try to enjoy my time on the island.”

I gaped. “You’re going to go swim? Right now?”

“Yup,” he called back at me, heading down to the water, his butt flexing as he strode.

“We don’t even have anything set up in camp! No water, no food, no shelter!”

“I’ll find my own,” he told me, still heading to the water. “Now leave me alone.”

Unreal. I watched him wade into the waves, astonished. Didn’t he care about surviving? We had no clothing, and if it got cold tonight - and it would - we’d be freezing our butts off. I’d just have to make my own bed…

And I knew what would happen if I did. He’d steal it for himself . I scowled at his form. So I was screwed. I could make no shelter and freeze, or I could make shelter knowing it was going to end up being for both of us. Lovely. I suspected Kip knew that, too. After all, if I made a fire, I couldn’t chase him away from it, could I?

Frustrated, I turned back to the flag and the box that had been left for us. Why, oh why had I stripped on the beach? It must have been temporary insanity. Or the need to impress that hot guy that had sat next to me on the boat ride. I tried to remember his name. Jordan? Jason?

Not that it mattered. I wasn’t here to hook up. Still, his encouragement on the beach had warmed me. If nothing else, he might end up as a friend or an ally.

I could sure use one right about now.

With a sigh, I pulled open the box to see what we’d have to live with for the next six weeks. Probably a stack of tampons and a “LOL GOOD LUCK” sign with the way my day had been going. The lid of the box was heavy, solid wood, and I put it aside carefully. The box was about three feet long and not very deep, but three feet of solid wood meant a decent place to sleep or even lay. Sand would be softer, but I didn’t want sand in my unmentionable places when I woke up, and given that we didn’t have blankets or underwear or anything, that seemed like a likely scenario.

Inside the box, a small packet of grease pencils was laid atop everything else. A tiny card rested on them that read “Have your partner write your name on your back. Please make sure you are labeled at all times.” I glanced around, but Kip was nowhere to be found, so I tossed the pencils aside for now. Below the small package of pencils was a single machete, a cast-iron pot, and two canteens. I knew what that meant - giving us a pot meant we’d have to boil our water. Well, at least they weren’t going to make us drink out of coconut shells. I supposed it could have been worse. I picked up a canteen and noticed that the beige band around the middle of the metal body was a note tied to it.

I glanced around for Kip. He was still in the water, floating on his back. Surreptitiously, I tugged the note off the canteen and glanced at it.

The note was written in a clear hand.
Want a hint for Pandora’s Box? Head for water and look for a forked tree. One foot down, there, Pandora’s Box will be.

Oh shit.

I read the note again, trying to memorize it. Water. Forked tree. One foot down. I rolled the note up hastily when I heard Kip begin to splash around, and looked for a place to hide the note. Shit. There was nowhere but sand - too easily discovered - and I had no pockets. After a frantic moment, I shoved the note into the opening of my canteen. There was an identical note wrapped around the other canteen, and I grabbed it just as I heard another splash and Kip came trotting up on the shore.

He caught me red-handed, holding the other note. “What’s that?”

“Oh. Um.” I stared down at it in my hand, then back at him. I didn’t even know what to say. I was a terrible liar in the best scenarios.

Kip, luckily, was so full of his own self-importance that he didn’t even notice my lame attempt to find an excuse. He tossed back his flowing black hair and pulled the note from my hand. Mute, I let him take it and inwardly cringed as he studied it. After a moment, he said, “Looks like a map to the water well.”

It was?

Frowning, I leaned over his shoulder to see, and ignored the fact that he adjusted his arm so it’d brush against my breast. Sure enough, there was a tiny map on his note with an X that had a water symbol next to it. “Oh,” I said.

He snorted. “What did you think it’d be?”

I said nothing, not trusting my voice.

Kip eyed the canteen in my hand. “Were you going to go get water?”

“I…can, I suppose.”

He handed his canteen to me. “Great. Could you get me some?”

I took it without a word of protest. “See if you can start a fire while I’m gone, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, and turned back to the water, heading for the ocean again.

Yeah. I had a feeling I’d get back to camp and there’d be no fire. Whatever. I kept my steps calm as I took the tiny map in hand and began to follow the marked path labeled on it. Inwardly, my heart was hammering. Near water, it had said. Near water. That wasn’t much of a clue, considering we were on an island surrounded by water…but the fact that it was tied to the canteen made me wonder if it was talking about the well instead. I’d start my search there. A forked tree shouldn’t be that hard to find.

Excitement surged through me. Pandora’s box! They sure were making it easy to find. A clue on day one, and an obvious one. It was evident that they wanted it to be found. Did that mean that there was something bad inside it?

Did I care? Not really. Things couldn’t get much worse in my opinion.

~~ *** ~~

It took me a half hour to find the well, and it was no more than a rain-barrel dug into the ground and covered with a cutesy island-motif top. The lid had BOIL ME FIRST carved into it. I wondered, if there wasn’t natural water on the island, how hard would it be to fill the barrel with drinking water instead of whatever this was? But I supposed boiling water was part of the
Endurance Island
challenge. Canteens filled, I slung them over my neck and started to look for a forked tree.

I searched for two hours, both near the well and as far as I dared wander. No forked tree. Dismayed, I buried the clue below a tree with spidery roots and headed back to the beach. I was tired, sunburned, and hungry, and I’d need to do something about shelter if I planned on sleeping tonight. The canteens now full of water I couldn’t drink, I headed toward camp, hoping to be greeted by the smell of smoke from a nice fire.

No such luck. When I returned, Kip was laid out on the beach, soaking up the sun and enjoying himself. Nothing had been done at camp.

Gritting my teeth, I set to work. First, fire. Then, I could boil water. After that, I’d have to look for shelter of some kind. It was abundantly clear to me that one of us thought he was going to get by on charm alone. Come to think of it, he’d pulled the same stunt last time we’d played and I’d been too besotted to notice. Gullible, gullible Annabelle. Someday, you’d think I’d learn.

So I gathered brush for tinder and dug a fire pit in the sand and lined it with rocks. I gathered wood. By the time I had a decent stack of firewood, the sun was going down and I was too tired to work on the fire itself. We had no flint, so I’d have to make a fire by rubbing sticks together - good ol’ friction. That required a lot more energy than I had at the moment.

With the last of my strength, I went to the edge of the beach and picked up a coconut. They were everywhere, luckily, but I knew that they wouldn’t last. Still, it’d do for today. I’d gotten pretty good at cracking coconuts the last time I played, and I had it open with two well-placed swings. Coconut juice began to dribble onto the sand and I grabbed it and tipped it back to drink the sweet liquid.

“Hey, you going to save some of that for me?” Kip asked.

I paused in my drinking long enough to respond. “Nope.” And I tipped the coconut back to get even more of the juice.

“Bitch.”

I ignored him. I drank all of the coconut’s juice - and it was a full one - and then cracked it open to eat the meat. I ate as Kip picked a coconut for himself and then proceeded to nearly chop his hand off trying to open it. I watched him, thinking that I should probably help him.

Instead, I ate another piece of coconut.

When I was done eating, I got up, rinsed my sticky hands in the ocean water, grabbed some palm leaves that were lying on the ground, found the box top, curled up, and tried to sleep.

My first night on
Endurance Island.
No shelter, no water, no fire, and no Pandora’s Box. Kip as a partner.

Yep, things were going great.

Chapter Six

“Maybe I should have left her alone, but…I don’t know. I saw that, and my head just about exploded. What kind of asshole does that to someone? I had to fix it. So much for my ‘No More Nice Guy’ or even ‘No Impulsive Moves to Endanger Your Game’ strategies.” — Jendan Abercrombie, Day 3, Endurance Island: Power Players

“We’ve been summoned,” Kip said, waving a bamboo card in the air. There was a red box tucked under his arm that I didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?” I asked, throwing another log on the fire. Our canteens were dry and water needed to be boiled, and I couldn’t count on Kip to lift a finger around camp.

“Tribal summons,” he told me, giving me a dismissive look, as if I were stupid for asking. “It says ‘
Challenge today, don’t be last
place. Don’t worry about speed, this isn’t a race. You’ll play for points, be the first team to three. You’ll avoid Judgment…at least for another three.
’” Kip wrinkled his nose. “I think they rhymed three with three.”

“A challenge? What kind of challenge do you suppose it is?” I forgot about the fire and got to my feet, wincing as I did. Every inch of my skin was covered with a deep red sunburn. It really, really sucked, and it was painful every time anything touched it. Sand, a stiff breeze, water, you name it, it hurt like the dickens. The only thing that made my misery somewhat bearable was that Kip was worse off than me. His buttocks and groin were a flaming red that seemed brighter every time I saw it and he moaned about it constantly.

Which made him help me even less around camp, but my expectations were pretty much nil at this point.

“I wish this was a reward challenge,” Kip said glumly. “For sunblock.”

“Or shorts?”

“Yeah, that would be good, too.” He studied me. “Your tits look like tomatoes.”

Did the man think about anything other than my breasts? This wasn’t the first time I’d heard him comment on them, and it irritated me more each time. “Your dick looks like a peanut and your balls look like a pair of meatballs. Should we hit up any other food groups while we’re at it?”

He looked shocked. “Not a banana?”

“Definitely not a banana,” I said coolly, getting a tiny bit of pleasure at his scowl. Honestly, what had I ever seen in that man? I shook my head and pointed at my back. “Just grease pencil my name on me, will you? The boat’s going to be here soon to take us to the challenge.”

I put my hands on my hips and stood as Kip wrote on my back, taking an excessively long time and swirling the pencil around on my skin. We’d been chastised by production yesterday for not writing names big enough and bold enough, so now we just wrote on each other’s backs. When Kip was done writing, he held the grease pencil out to me. I turned and obligingly wrote his name in big, bold letters across his back and then put the pencil back in the crate. In the distance, a boat motor roared. Since we were all stuck on different beaches, a boat would swing by to pick us up and take us to the challenge area. Kip and I headed toward the beach.

“So how come you’re not as red as me on your snatch?”

I ignored him. First of all, I didn’t want to talk about my ‘snatch’ with Kip, nor did I want to discuss it with a cameraman five feet away. More than that, I had a bit of a secret that I didn’t intend on sharing. I’d found a small aloe vera plant a short distance away from the water and I’d been giddily putting it on my most sensitive areas that were causing me the most pain.